The only thing keeping the Democrat party alive at this moment is Donald Trump. The Democrat party is otherwise dead. It is the party of identity politics that include, but not limited to African-Americans illegal aliens queers Marxists elite academics and of course unions most especially the teachers unions are destroying American education. Once Donald J Trump is gone the Democrats will have nothing to say. Of course, a lot of what I am saying will depend on who replaces Trump. On that same token who is going to be the Democrat nominate. The top four so-called contenders Pitzka Newsom, Kamala waltz, and that bum from California Ro something out of the question. Oh yeah, and AOC what a joke that would be.
I've said this before, but the far-left will hate JD Vance just as much as they hate Trump, if not more. Expect a lot of talk about how he's the Commander from The Handmaid's Tale whereas Trump was just a crass buffoon and wannabe dictator. Vance really will be able to deliver on the fascist America that Trump wanted.
Whether or not they can sell moderates on this as well will be interesting.
“even Democratic critics of woke dogma admit that progressives have been responsible for reinvigorating the party after the disappointments and setbacks of the Obama era.”
Really? Seriously? Only if “reinvigorating” the party means “handing it over to baby Stalinists who want to cancel and virtue signal the party’s way to electoral oblivion.”
It’s 13 months since Trump won a second election and the Dems still don’t get it. If you say, but unchecked illegal immigration isn’t a good thing,” you’re a racist deplorable who doesn’t want to admit that this country was built on immigrants. If you say that men can’t turn into women, you’re a transphobe who wants to erase “trans women.” Meanwhile, 25% of students at UC San Diego can’t answer “7 + 2 = ? + 6”.* This is a highly selective university that rejects 75% of applicants. Harvard and Stanford, which reject >95% of applicants run remedial math classes.
The Dems haven’t been reinvigorated They’ve turned into a woke mob. And they won’t win the presidency until they find their way back to sanity.
Distrust of government is huge. Note, though, that it's not the Democrats urging investigations into "big food" but RFK, Jr. (Yes, SF has launched a lawsuit, which will go nowhere). Note that it is Trump's administration talking about breaking up some big monopolies. Notice that it is Trump's HHS that is rolling back the massively distrusted vax mandates. Note that it is Trump's administration questioning the STATES' willingness to hand out drivers' licenses to illegal aliens. Note that it is Trump who is investigating the Somaliland welfare fraud in MN. In short, wherever you look, Trump is using government to address the DISTRUST in government. Democrats aren't even in the same universe.
Now, for my usual roundup---and yes there was a great poll for Trump and I put no more stock in good ones for him than bad ones---we had a BIG drop in voter registration data last week, including DE, NJ, ID, UT, FL, CO, KY, LA, RI, PA, and NC. There were so many I'm probably leaving some out. Out of all these observations, only PA and maybe 2 others saw any gain whatsoever by Ds (and we're talking a couple of hundred, not thousands). PA was one, where Ds reclaimed about 270, despite not moving the needle at all in the "swing" counties such as Northampton. But otherwise, we are looking at---yet again, for the 20th straight month---solid R gains. Now, let's be clear: in many cases BOTH parties (+indies) lost numbers to voter roll purges, but in almost all cases the Rs gained ground in those shifts. But the biggies---IA (Rs gained 1/2 point statewide), FL (Rs gained yet another 10,000 to go up over 1.4 million), and NC (Rs gained another net 3,000, meaning by this time Feb NC will be a red state---all moved red-ward. This is completely inconsistent with "polling" and suggests that whatever reservations voters have about Rs, they are terrified of Ds. The Amazing Zohran in NYC will only hurt as his crazed policies come into effect. The investigations of Walz will only hurt. And Newsome? CA continues to wallow.
A "tea party" of the left would involve serious efforts to distance themselves from the vax; from China; from "climate change" (which is collapsing world wide); to embrace Big Data and Big Oil for Big Data; to embrace crypto; to break up Hollywood monopolies; and to insist that not only can there be NO fraud at all associated with illegals, but all illegals must go. Now, do you really see any of that happening? Hence, voter registration shifts.
I thought the left tea party was already in control for 4 years. Woke corporatists. That was 4 years of delaying the loans for the advanced degrees, inflated salaries for everyone able to write a grant proposal, and cheap servants. I don't think the Left Tea Party was interested in esoteric meat and potatoes things like the FTC, Labor Relations Board, or Warren's Consumer Protection Bureau. The Left Tea folks had their way, and they still control media and academia.
As with AOC, once you strip the Park Slope Populists down to their essentials they are show horses not work horses. Lots of noise, no benefit to anyone except government largess for themselves. Financing au pairs is not at the top of my priorities. I really don't need a Tesla and neither do they.
FYI references to essays behind unassailable pay walls do nothing for me. I'm sure I'd love to read what Judis had to say, but not for $90.
There is an opening for a moderate Democrat - a liberal patriot - to be elected President in 2028. Trump's public personality alone alienates millions of persuadable voters, and some of his policies are very unpopular.
But there is zero evidence that a moderate Democrat can overcome the far Left activists who control the party's nominating process. The crazies show up to vote in primaries because they are intensely motivated voters, while the moderates are intermittent in their voting habits (likewise with most working class Trump voters who only vote when Trump's name is on the ballot). Name even one elected Democrat with aspirations for higher office who will say that we need secure borders and that we cannot allow every impoverished person who sets foot on American soil to stay here forever and collect public assistance for life. Name even one elected Democrat who will push back on the extremes of transgender ideology or DEI.
The only hope for Democrats in 2028 - and it's a realistic hope - is that economic conditions are bad enough that any Democrat can beat any Republican.
"Name even one elected Democrat with aspirations for higher office who will say that we need secure borders and that we cannot allow every impoverished person who sets foot on American soil to stay here forever and collect public assistance for life. Name even one elected Democrat who will push back on the extremes of transgender ideology or DEI."
Actually, I think there are very few elected Democrats who would say or who believe that we do not need secure borders, that we should allow every impoverished arrival to collect public assistance indefinitely. And there are many who believe and say that while the rights of every person should be protected there are areas where transgender ideology has become far too extreme and DEI a manifestation of identity politics as corrosive on the left as spreading white nationalist views are on the right.
Josh Shapiro, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Rahm Emmanuel are all examples that come to mind of Democrats holding such views who appear to have ambitions for national office (apologies to those whose names have not come to mind), and they also represent a variety of positions within the Democratic Party broad base. I think we'll be seeing Gavin Newsom, who originally positioned himself much closer to progressivism (as it's now understood) increasingly sending signals that he recognizes the need for moderate policies on immigration, gender issues, and DEI as well.
OK so you want Biden 2.0. The first Biden administration was the most progressive in US history and it sounds like you want to pick up where they left off and add more: income redistribution, more government programs. It may be too soon to sell the voters on the policies they just rejected.
Mr. Vassallo's post is well-thought, restrained in what it claims to know and careful in its analysis of the central problem: how Democrats committed to a liberal vision of America can realign the Democratic Party to draw the enduring support of enough of the electorate, broadly distributed, to regain the leverage needed to restore effective governance dedicated to that liberal vision.
But, as seems increasingly true of the comments section here, the response of readers of The Liberal Patriot seems to come overwhelmingly from readers hostile to the liberal vision and to the project of the blog. The "Democrat Party" is all "baby Stalinists" and "woke mobs," "queers and Marxists," and needs instead to embrace Big Oil and Big Data, deny climate change, ditch vaccines and income redistribution, and so forth. I don't doubt that these commenters are patriots, but they certainly are not liberals.
I subscribe The Liberal Patriot because I'm looking for serious discussion among those dedicated to its vision about how to rebuild a liberal Democratic Party so it can capture the support of a broad spectrum of the electorate and deliver responsible governance that serves the entire electorate. The blog posts seem to open the door to that, but the comments seem mainly intended to shut the discussion down with polarizing attacks by those more satisfied with the illiberal vision of the current iteration of the Republican Party.
I would appreciate the authors and editors of The Liberal Patriot doing what many other Substack blogs do: engage with comments to try to keep the discussion productive and focused on the basic mission of the blog.
It has to be hard for a political party to share most Americans necessary and healthy distrust of government when that party aspires to being that government, permanently.
Democrats need a primer refresher course, a deep-rooted understanding that while givernment may be a given, its success depends entirely upon the competition of ideas outside of government by the two political parties vying honestly for the electoral backing of an Anerican majority.
Politics 101 has somehow become elusive to Democrats' 21st century statist mindset, no thanks to its Woke Leftist drag.
The largest Dem hurdle? Trump has an expiration date. Lousy Dem policy does not. Bob is right. Trump is the Dem MVP. Only Trump's spending and language, lousy Rep messaging, and the Left's nearly magical Madison Avenue ability to repackage tired ideas, are keeping Dems afloat.
"Affordability" is just "inflation" with new verbiage that allows Dems to blame Reps for Biden's historic rise in prices. Reps should daily be spouting Biden's greatest hits.
1. Trillions flushed on Green fantasies based on "Climate facts" with all the scientific accuracy of the Flat Earth Society. Everyone from Bill Gates to Nature Magazine is mumbling "Sorry, our Bad", after Dems wasted trillions on every loonie Climate idea ever birthed.
Dems seriously proclaimed the death of fossil fuels. They shuttered refineries, pipelines, nuclear power plants and coal facilities with nothing to replace them but wind and solar fairy tales. Then Dems tossed wood on the fire of the Mother of All Bad Ideas, with EV mandates and subsidies, insane appliance and building regulations. . . The combination has produced soaring energy prices, in a nation awash in energy reserves.
2. Housing costs increased 50% or more, nationwide, due to Dems holding interest rates too low for too long, the arrival of 10-12 million migrants without a single extra bedroom to house them and Green regulation.
3. Dem Child social engineering cheered the removal of healthy child body parts, the end of fertility before high school graduation, via "medication", and boys in Girl's female spaces. Dems topped off their War on Children, with many Blue State schools closed for 18 months. The result has been the worst US school test scores in decades.
4. DEI and woke, enough said.
5. Massive increases in healthcare and welfare spending with little to no citizen benefit. Costs were stoked by the lethal combination of lousy policy, massive waste and fraud, and the purposeful importation of 10 -12 million of people, most in need of permanent subsidy.
Yet, no Dem is repudiating any of the above. No Dem Party Reformation coming, just Mamdani and our daily Donald diatribe. Reps may well hand Dems Congress and the WH, but Dem policy will not.
The only thing keeping the Democrat party alive at this moment is Donald Trump. The Democrat party is otherwise dead. It is the party of identity politics that include, but not limited to African-Americans illegal aliens queers Marxists elite academics and of course unions most especially the teachers unions are destroying American education. Once Donald J Trump is gone the Democrats will have nothing to say. Of course, a lot of what I am saying will depend on who replaces Trump. On that same token who is going to be the Democrat nominate. The top four so-called contenders Pitzka Newsom, Kamala waltz, and that bum from California Ro something out of the question. Oh yeah, and AOC what a joke that would be.
I've said this before, but the far-left will hate JD Vance just as much as they hate Trump, if not more. Expect a lot of talk about how he's the Commander from The Handmaid's Tale whereas Trump was just a crass buffoon and wannabe dictator. Vance really will be able to deliver on the fascist America that Trump wanted.
Whether or not they can sell moderates on this as well will be interesting.
I really do not care what the left thinks or hates because it is the left that has destroyed and continues to destroy America.
“even Democratic critics of woke dogma admit that progressives have been responsible for reinvigorating the party after the disappointments and setbacks of the Obama era.”
Really? Seriously? Only if “reinvigorating” the party means “handing it over to baby Stalinists who want to cancel and virtue signal the party’s way to electoral oblivion.”
It’s 13 months since Trump won a second election and the Dems still don’t get it. If you say, but unchecked illegal immigration isn’t a good thing,” you’re a racist deplorable who doesn’t want to admit that this country was built on immigrants. If you say that men can’t turn into women, you’re a transphobe who wants to erase “trans women.” Meanwhile, 25% of students at UC San Diego can’t answer “7 + 2 = ? + 6”.* This is a highly selective university that rejects 75% of applicants. Harvard and Stanford, which reject >95% of applicants run remedial math classes.
The Dems haven’t been reinvigorated They’ve turned into a woke mob. And they won’t win the presidency until they find their way back to sanity.
*https://x.com/BrandonWarmke/status/1989069715302666356
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2025/11/12/uc-san-diego-sees-students-math-skills-plummet
The Party is too far left as it is. If it moves farther left, it's over for them.
Distrust of government is huge. Note, though, that it's not the Democrats urging investigations into "big food" but RFK, Jr. (Yes, SF has launched a lawsuit, which will go nowhere). Note that it is Trump's administration talking about breaking up some big monopolies. Notice that it is Trump's HHS that is rolling back the massively distrusted vax mandates. Note that it is Trump's administration questioning the STATES' willingness to hand out drivers' licenses to illegal aliens. Note that it is Trump who is investigating the Somaliland welfare fraud in MN. In short, wherever you look, Trump is using government to address the DISTRUST in government. Democrats aren't even in the same universe.
Now, for my usual roundup---and yes there was a great poll for Trump and I put no more stock in good ones for him than bad ones---we had a BIG drop in voter registration data last week, including DE, NJ, ID, UT, FL, CO, KY, LA, RI, PA, and NC. There were so many I'm probably leaving some out. Out of all these observations, only PA and maybe 2 others saw any gain whatsoever by Ds (and we're talking a couple of hundred, not thousands). PA was one, where Ds reclaimed about 270, despite not moving the needle at all in the "swing" counties such as Northampton. But otherwise, we are looking at---yet again, for the 20th straight month---solid R gains. Now, let's be clear: in many cases BOTH parties (+indies) lost numbers to voter roll purges, but in almost all cases the Rs gained ground in those shifts. But the biggies---IA (Rs gained 1/2 point statewide), FL (Rs gained yet another 10,000 to go up over 1.4 million), and NC (Rs gained another net 3,000, meaning by this time Feb NC will be a red state---all moved red-ward. This is completely inconsistent with "polling" and suggests that whatever reservations voters have about Rs, they are terrified of Ds. The Amazing Zohran in NYC will only hurt as his crazed policies come into effect. The investigations of Walz will only hurt. And Newsome? CA continues to wallow.
A "tea party" of the left would involve serious efforts to distance themselves from the vax; from China; from "climate change" (which is collapsing world wide); to embrace Big Data and Big Oil for Big Data; to embrace crypto; to break up Hollywood monopolies; and to insist that not only can there be NO fraud at all associated with illegals, but all illegals must go. Now, do you really see any of that happening? Hence, voter registration shifts.
Democrats may not control the three branches of government, but they do control all of the institutions, except for SCOTUS.
It is hard to pull off the insurgency schtick when you are already The Man.
I thought the left tea party was already in control for 4 years. Woke corporatists. That was 4 years of delaying the loans for the advanced degrees, inflated salaries for everyone able to write a grant proposal, and cheap servants. I don't think the Left Tea Party was interested in esoteric meat and potatoes things like the FTC, Labor Relations Board, or Warren's Consumer Protection Bureau. The Left Tea folks had their way, and they still control media and academia.
As with AOC, once you strip the Park Slope Populists down to their essentials they are show horses not work horses. Lots of noise, no benefit to anyone except government largess for themselves. Financing au pairs is not at the top of my priorities. I really don't need a Tesla and neither do they.
FYI references to essays behind unassailable pay walls do nothing for me. I'm sure I'd love to read what Judis had to say, but not for $90.
There is an opening for a moderate Democrat - a liberal patriot - to be elected President in 2028. Trump's public personality alone alienates millions of persuadable voters, and some of his policies are very unpopular.
But there is zero evidence that a moderate Democrat can overcome the far Left activists who control the party's nominating process. The crazies show up to vote in primaries because they are intensely motivated voters, while the moderates are intermittent in their voting habits (likewise with most working class Trump voters who only vote when Trump's name is on the ballot). Name even one elected Democrat with aspirations for higher office who will say that we need secure borders and that we cannot allow every impoverished person who sets foot on American soil to stay here forever and collect public assistance for life. Name even one elected Democrat who will push back on the extremes of transgender ideology or DEI.
The only hope for Democrats in 2028 - and it's a realistic hope - is that economic conditions are bad enough that any Democrat can beat any Republican.
"Name even one elected Democrat with aspirations for higher office who will say that we need secure borders and that we cannot allow every impoverished person who sets foot on American soil to stay here forever and collect public assistance for life. Name even one elected Democrat who will push back on the extremes of transgender ideology or DEI."
Actually, I think there are very few elected Democrats who would say or who believe that we do not need secure borders, that we should allow every impoverished arrival to collect public assistance indefinitely. And there are many who believe and say that while the rights of every person should be protected there are areas where transgender ideology has become far too extreme and DEI a manifestation of identity politics as corrosive on the left as spreading white nationalist views are on the right.
Josh Shapiro, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Rahm Emmanuel are all examples that come to mind of Democrats holding such views who appear to have ambitions for national office (apologies to those whose names have not come to mind), and they also represent a variety of positions within the Democratic Party broad base. I think we'll be seeing Gavin Newsom, who originally positioned himself much closer to progressivism (as it's now understood) increasingly sending signals that he recognizes the need for moderate policies on immigration, gender issues, and DEI as well.
OK so you want Biden 2.0. The first Biden administration was the most progressive in US history and it sounds like you want to pick up where they left off and add more: income redistribution, more government programs. It may be too soon to sell the voters on the policies they just rejected.
Mr. Vassallo's post is well-thought, restrained in what it claims to know and careful in its analysis of the central problem: how Democrats committed to a liberal vision of America can realign the Democratic Party to draw the enduring support of enough of the electorate, broadly distributed, to regain the leverage needed to restore effective governance dedicated to that liberal vision.
But, as seems increasingly true of the comments section here, the response of readers of The Liberal Patriot seems to come overwhelmingly from readers hostile to the liberal vision and to the project of the blog. The "Democrat Party" is all "baby Stalinists" and "woke mobs," "queers and Marxists," and needs instead to embrace Big Oil and Big Data, deny climate change, ditch vaccines and income redistribution, and so forth. I don't doubt that these commenters are patriots, but they certainly are not liberals.
I subscribe The Liberal Patriot because I'm looking for serious discussion among those dedicated to its vision about how to rebuild a liberal Democratic Party so it can capture the support of a broad spectrum of the electorate and deliver responsible governance that serves the entire electorate. The blog posts seem to open the door to that, but the comments seem mainly intended to shut the discussion down with polarizing attacks by those more satisfied with the illiberal vision of the current iteration of the Republican Party.
I would appreciate the authors and editors of The Liberal Patriot doing what many other Substack blogs do: engage with comments to try to keep the discussion productive and focused on the basic mission of the blog.
It has to be hard for a political party to share most Americans necessary and healthy distrust of government when that party aspires to being that government, permanently.
Democrats need a primer refresher course, a deep-rooted understanding that while givernment may be a given, its success depends entirely upon the competition of ideas outside of government by the two political parties vying honestly for the electoral backing of an Anerican majority.
Politics 101 has somehow become elusive to Democrats' 21st century statist mindset, no thanks to its Woke Leftist drag.
The largest Dem hurdle? Trump has an expiration date. Lousy Dem policy does not. Bob is right. Trump is the Dem MVP. Only Trump's spending and language, lousy Rep messaging, and the Left's nearly magical Madison Avenue ability to repackage tired ideas, are keeping Dems afloat.
"Affordability" is just "inflation" with new verbiage that allows Dems to blame Reps for Biden's historic rise in prices. Reps should daily be spouting Biden's greatest hits.
1. Trillions flushed on Green fantasies based on "Climate facts" with all the scientific accuracy of the Flat Earth Society. Everyone from Bill Gates to Nature Magazine is mumbling "Sorry, our Bad", after Dems wasted trillions on every loonie Climate idea ever birthed.
Dems seriously proclaimed the death of fossil fuels. They shuttered refineries, pipelines, nuclear power plants and coal facilities with nothing to replace them but wind and solar fairy tales. Then Dems tossed wood on the fire of the Mother of All Bad Ideas, with EV mandates and subsidies, insane appliance and building regulations. . . The combination has produced soaring energy prices, in a nation awash in energy reserves.
2. Housing costs increased 50% or more, nationwide, due to Dems holding interest rates too low for too long, the arrival of 10-12 million migrants without a single extra bedroom to house them and Green regulation.
3. Dem Child social engineering cheered the removal of healthy child body parts, the end of fertility before high school graduation, via "medication", and boys in Girl's female spaces. Dems topped off their War on Children, with many Blue State schools closed for 18 months. The result has been the worst US school test scores in decades.
4. DEI and woke, enough said.
5. Massive increases in healthcare and welfare spending with little to no citizen benefit. Costs were stoked by the lethal combination of lousy policy, massive waste and fraud, and the purposeful importation of 10 -12 million of people, most in need of permanent subsidy.
Yet, no Dem is repudiating any of the above. No Dem Party Reformation coming, just Mamdani and our daily Donald diatribe. Reps may well hand Dems Congress and the WH, but Dem policy will not.